Bright Lights And Bullets: Tokyo 42

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Tokyo 42 [official site] was the prettiest game of March 30th, 2016, when the announcement trailer arrived and made every other game feel just a little bit drab. Talk of social stealth, crowd simulation and isometric action made me extremely happy and the word ‘Syndicate’ spilled out of my face and fingertips almost immediately. Publishers Mode 7, they of the Frozen Synapse, have now released a video showing a playthrough of both multiplayer and singleplayer levels.

Yeah, that works for me. Stealth, wild jumps, crowds scattering, diving for cover, infiltrating temples – these are precisely the things I want to do in a bright, cheery future-Tokyo. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to own an apartment as well and spend the downtime between missions buying new furniture and outfits, but it’s OK if some games choose not to indulge my every desire.

If the level design is strong enough to support the different possible playstyles shown here the whole way through – with the exception of areas built to force a particular approach like the temple here – then Tokyo 42 should be a marvel in more than the looks department. But I’m still caught up on how it looks, truth be told. Imagine if the next Hitman episode had a similar art style, or if Watch Dogs 2 were quite so colourful and odd. We’d be partying in the streets.

It’ll be a long while before we get to visit this particular Tokyo. The video shows an early alpha and the game isn’t due until early next year

6 Comments

I had a toy around with this at EGX Rezzed. It was a neat little game and stylistically wonderful, but still felt very early and a little bare bones. I definitely look forward to the complete version and this is a neat taster of what’s in store.

Are we starting to see a trend of games with lots of very tiny detail that seem to designed with an enormous monitor in mind? There was also that mech game which has the camera pulled back a lot further than is typical.